Monday, January 31, 2011

In our last post, we challenged LJKGW readers (the best readers in the frickin' world YEAH! *belly bump*) to come up with their own original answers to an epic question that has vexed philosophers and comics alike for eonscenturies at least six months.

Here - at long last and in no particular order - are their equally epic responses, with links for extra, baked-in tastiness!

Enjoy - and thanks to everyone who participated! (BTW, I tested all of the links, but if you find one that doesn't work, let me know and I'll fix it asap.)

Ms Chicken crossed the road because it was rumored, due to her supple breasts and thighs, she was next in line for the slaughter house. In an attempt to save her life, she was going to the plastic surgeon for a breast reduction and liposuction.RachelConsciously Sedated

Answer submitted by convicted rooster Jimmy "Three Clucks" Panituccio: Who in da flock says it was me that crossed da friggin' road? When I find da rat who ran his beak, he's gonna end up in an eighteen-piece bucket over a da Kentucky Coi-nels.ChrisKnuckleheadHumor

Of course I can't be certain, but it looked to me as if the chicken crossed the road to avoid having to pass me on the sidewalk. I hope I'm wrong, but she wouldn't make eye contact, so I'm afraid that I'm not.Boudreau FreretThe Adventures of B. Freret

The Chicken crossed that road after staring at it for several years. It was her Rubicon, her cross to bear, the albatross around her neck. That road was her ex-boyfriend, her mother in law, her own mother, her 3rd grade teacher, and her miscarriage all wrapped up in one. That road stood for everything that said "you're not good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, or ballsy enough" to cross me. Chicken dreamed about that road. It made her wake up in the night, horny and sobbing. She obsessed about it, spent hours in therapy processing it, and wrote two entire novels about it. That nobody bought. Finally, after facing postpartum depression, a foreclosure, and the loss of her sister to breast cancer, Chicken realized that the road was only in her mind and she said "Screw it" (only it sounded more like "BOK BOK!") and just crossed it. And you know what? It was no big deal.Kim Tracy PrinceHouse of Prince

To show his friends he had guts...no wait...that was the hedgehog.R. CharishSpotty Dog

She was in search of a martini bar and a massage parlor which was what her DOCTOR prescribed for her apparent case of 'MY KIDS ARE DRIVING ME CRAZY" sickness. I hear there's an epidemic.Vodka MomVodkaMom.com

Because his deeply unconscious egg-oedipal complex had him enacting a masochistic impulse towards his own destruction due to the fact that he had fantasies of killing his father and sleeping with his mother. If the chicken would undertake a four time a week psychoanalysis it could work through his issues and stop this masochistic enterprise.TraceyLa Belette Rouge

Chicken crossed the road because she wanted to show her community she could. All her life, no one believed in Chicken. As early as the nest, the others called her useless, said she'd never even be good enough for a stew pot. In spite of them all, Chicken believed in herself. She knew someday, given a chance, she'd do something wonderful. So she gathered up her courage, puffed out her feathers, raised her beak, and stepped out onto the road.Then a wonderful thing happened. In the very instant Chicken left her old, disparaging community behind, she found a new one. There across the road, cheering her on, rooting for her, was a family of foxes. They liked her. They really liked her! They believed she could do anything!Chicken hurried across the road toward her new life.Jan Rider Newmanswamplily.comBeyond Acadia: Reading, Writing and Living Wellbestdamncreativewritingblog.com

Why do you want to know? Are you with the government? Does the Homeland Security Threat level adjust according to the location of the chicken? Do you have a warrant? Let me see your identification. What chicken?Lori O.In Pursuit of Martha Points

She smelled our waffle pan heating up and immediately knew to run away. Just like Pavlov's dog. Well, no, I guess the chicken's response to waffle stimulae is pretty much the opposite of Pavlov's dog response to the bell. Pavlov's dog wouldn't have let that chicken get out of the yard, though, I'll tell you that much. That pup would drool over a nice plate of chicken and waffles, bell or no bell. But then again, who wouldn't?Deb RoxDeb on the Rocks

Aw geez, asking WHY the chicken crossed the road is so last year. Better you should ask HOW she crossed the road or WHEN she crossed the road! Enough with the WHY already!Bama CherylMaking Other Plans

The chicken crossed the road because it saw my mother coming. My Mom, named “Milka,” came from good Czech stock, and loved nothing more than wringing a neck. As a matter of fact, she threatened to wring mine frequently during my adolescent years. Due to her prowess with farm animals, this was not a threat to be taken lightly! Milka learned how to kill chickens and put them in pots at a young age. Those were some delicious meals, once we all learned to get over the sight feathers, guts, and the odd chicken foot on the floor. Mom also knew how to make her own sausage and concoct something called “blood pudding,” which believe you me, neither I or my sister ever wanted to try. Milka also could make her own beer and had a recipe for lye soap. When she washed my hair, my scalp hurt for a week afterwards. Good grief—it wasn’t just CHICKENS that walked in fear of my Mom. My Dad was always VERY respectful!Molly Campbellmollydcampbell.com

In all these years of speculation about the chicken's motives, has anyone bothered to ask the chicken directly? Has the chicken refused to grant interviews? Well, being rather shy of chickens, and particularly of talking chickens, I'M not about to be the first to approach the chicken! Therefore, I'll continue to feed the rumor mill by suggesting that the chicken crossed the road...to get an omelet. (THE CHICKEN IS A CANNIBAL!)Florinda Pendley VasquezThe 3 R's: Reading, 'Riting and Randomness

Obviously because the chicken's mother-in-law told her about a great deli across the street that has the most divine whitefish salad. And you must get it on a pumpernickel bagel with some lettuce. But not tomato because they are just too mushy and mealy this time of year. And after the deli, the chicken has to stop at the drug store which is right next door. Strange because the chicken just went there yesterday. And the day before. But yet, the chicken has once again realized she needs something else. This time she's buying Chiclets peppermint gum and some more Advil because that rooster is way way annoying. The kind of loud, grating bird that does not deserve a bite of her divine whitefish salad.Kelcey KintnerThe Mama Bird Diaries

Dear Ms. Leffler,We're sorry to inform you that we've been playing a horrible, no good, very bad joke on you for years. Chickens never cross roads. NEVER. They're just too addle-brained to make it to the other side alive. They stay on their own side of the road at all times. They may be a few beers shy of a 6-pack but they have amazing survival instincts. We're sorry to have caused you any pain and anguish worrying about chickens vis-à-vis road crossings.Very truly yours, Geo. Washington and A. LincolnCherylDeckside Thoughts

Because he was in Nevada and there on the other side of the freeway was the famous Chicken Ranch. Of course, being an ignorant fowl, he completely misunderstood what he was looking at. He just figured it'd be a good place to nest for the night, and besides, he was tired and thirsty. As he began to move across the busy highway, he heard what he thought were geese, but he was only semi-correct. Not geese, but diese. As I said, our boy was not too bright and couldn't read all that well, so of course he constantly left letters off words. If he was smart at all, he'd've been a rooster, but he was timid too, so he was always just a little chicken. He made it to the Ranch just in time for dinner. He wasn't the first guy to get completely plucked there, either.The HumorSmithhumorsmith.com

It depends on whom you ask:The farmer: To get away from me

The rooster: To get at me

The chef: To be paired with an amazing pinot grigio

The health nut: Because that's where the free range, hormone and chemical free chicken farm is

GOD! I'm so sick of the big deal about the chicken crossing the road! I cross the road multiple times a day, sometimes even clucking, and no one has ever bothered to ask me why. Chicken, chicken, chicken. Everything's about the chicken.MarinkaMotherhood in NYCMouthy HousewivesSecret Spineless Whine

Because the other free-range chickens on its side of the median are mean, and it's in a bad mode.Wesley KingThe Recycled Orphan

The Momma Chick didn't want to cross the damn road. She was just fine sitting on the park bench with her Diet Dr Pepper and twittering away on her iPhone, but her newly two-year-old chickadee now finds it completely impossible to do anything that would keep the Momma Chick from losing her ever-loving mind. So as the baby chick gets closer and closer to the road, the Momma Chick gets off her butt, stuffs her phone in her pocket and tries to stealthily make her way across the playground before her chickadee is in the middle of the freakin' street.

The Momma Chicken is torn between stealth (she knows eye contact with the chick will only increase the speed with which she runs into oncoming traffic) and screaming at the top of her lungs, “YOU STOP RIGHT THERE AND DON'T TAKE ONE MORE STEP OR YOU WILL BE SORRY!” But worries, the latter might raise a few eyebrows in the hen house. So she sneaks, when the chubby little chick looks up, makes eye contact and grins from ear to ear with mischief in her deceptively blue eyes, the Momma Chick has no choice but to throw down her Diet Dr Pepper and haul her ass across the road.Robin O'BryantRobin's Chicks

That chicken (rooster, actually) is a friend of mine named of Ferdinand. Since he spends most his time surrounded by nattering hens that just go on and on about every damn thing til his head begins to spin and his comb starts to droop, his handler, Olin Craighead (that’s him with the leash), fixed him up a special place across the road.It’s nothing but a shed. Corrugated tin, rusty, not much to look at. But you see that little dish on the roof? Gets DirecTV and the internet. There's a beat up old leather La-Z-Boy in there and one of those fancy swivel laptop tables that lets Ferdinand recline and access his email and such. It's not easy since his hands are just feathers (ie, not good for much) and his feet are talons that sometimes do more damage to the keyboard than good. But he gets by. He's rigged things to his liking.Here’s Ferdinand’s secret: he likes to look at kittehroulette.com and lolcats. Yes, he's got a thing for cats. He was raised by a barn cat, Mittens, after his mother abandoned him. When Mittens died a couple of years ago, you can imagine how hard Ferdinand took it. Olin fixed Ferdinand up with his own space, got him a computer and taught him how to find kitties. When he stumbled onto lolcats, Ferdinand laughed for the first time in.....well, ages and ages. Seemed like forever since he'd been happy. He came back to himself and, thanks to the internet kitties, Ferdinand is his old cocky self again.

Is it wrong that this post made me hungry? Guess what's for dinner? Let's just say that the chicken isn't going to cross the road again.Love this post. And delighted to be among such witty chicken speculators.

OMG Lois Your right These are some of the funniest things I Have ever read... My cheeks must be red also as the are a bit sore from smiling so much... Thanks for the heads up, and leading me to this great read... Every single one Beautiful... What a great question to ponder!!! Peace!!!

Thanks, Anna, for giving all your minions a shout out. If I ever reach your level of blogging excellence, I will do the same for my followers;) Oh, and thanks for figuring out the correct link to my blog. You would think that when entering a blog contest, one would provide the correct url address. Thank God you are so astute;)

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Anna Lefler is an award-winning writer and humorist and the author of THE CHICKTIONARY: FROM A-LINE TO Z-SNAP, THE WORDS EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW (Adams Media, November 2011). Her work has appeared online at Salon.com, McSweeney's, TheBigJewel, MyPheme, FunnyNotSlutty and HumorPress. Anna's essays on modern motherhood have been nationally syndicated and her fiction has been presented onstage by WordTheatre Los Angeles. She has performed standup comedy in Los Angeles clubs including the Hollywood Improv, the Comedy Store, Room 5 Lounge and M Bar. Anna can also be found at www.annalefler.com, where she is trying to stop referring to herself in third person.